Early adopters of technology belong in every organization

"Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM." That's how the old quip goes, and that remains the mentality of many IT professionals today -- at least in their aversion to trying something different. Even as disruptive apps regularly take down decades of business as usual, the people who make everything work under the hood gladly run in the middle of the pack, shun beta versions and stick to the safe bet. Early adopters of technology are out there -- flying in the face of these conventions -- but they're not taking on as much risk as you might think. In fact, executives are throwing their support behind innovative IT. There was an era when a buyer blindly trusted the salesperson, said Mark Betz, site reliability engineer at Olark, a live chat and messaging software provider. If the tool or platform wasn't right, no one could blame you for relying on a trustworthy major vendor. With the rise of open source, the risk shifted. You're now responsible for understanding the product you choose, Betz said. "Do you trust yourself to make a ...